Announcement
June 18, 2013

Posted on June 18, 2013 by Todd Schmoock, Manufacturing Solutions Engineer:

AutoCAD Electrical uses the assemblycode and the assemblylist fields to add subassembly items when adding catalog data using the parts catalog database.  For example, you add a push button and you always want the contact block(s) and mounting latch to show up on the bill of material when you identify the catalog number.  In this case, you would use the assemblycode and assemblylist fields.  The Parts Catalog database it would look like this:

The Catalog Data area of the Insert/Edit Component dialog looks like this:

However, sometimes the subassembly items and their quantities change depending on where, and what, they are used for.  In this example say you wanted parent part A to get 2 of children part F and 4 of children part G in some applications, but in other applications the quantities and the children parts change.  In this case the record in the Parts Catalog database would not get an ASSEMBLYCODE value:

However, the children parts would get an ASSEMBLYLIST value:

To add the children parts and the quantities you would add them in the Catalog Data Assembly field in the Insert/Edit Component dialog as shown to the right:

The formatting is QTY,ASSEMBLYLIST.  To add additional subassembly items you separate them with a semicolon.  In the example shown above you have 2 Part F’s and 4 Part G’s, and it was entered as “2,PartF;4,PartG”.  The Catalog Check tool displays it as follows:

You could use the ASSEMBLYCLODE and ASSEMBLYLIST fields to accomplish the same results by entering all catalog number combinations.  You could use the Multiple Catalog option too by adding the parent catalog number in the main catalog data field and then adding up to 99 children and their quantities.  This is another option for you to consider, and may save you time when adding the catalog data information.

-Todd

Check out some of Todd’s previous posts:

Todd has over 20 years experience in the mechanical engineering field. Ten years of this time was spent as a documentation specialist/designer at Honeywell, Inc. where he worked on several government contracts which required strict drafting and design documentation in accordance with government standards. Additional experience comes from working in the technical ceramic, elevator, and specialty gas industry designing equipment for each of these fields. Todd joined Synergis in 2003 as a Design Solutions Engineer where he began providing assistance to customers through training and consulting, helpdesk support, as well as providing pre-sales support. Todd was recently promoted to Director of Manufacturing Solutions.
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